It’s not like there weren’t enough stars in the Plaza Athenee dining room this afternoon. Besides Robert DeNiro and Danny DeVito, who headline Taylor Hackford’s “The Comedian,” there was Edie Falco, Leslie Mann, Lois Smith not mention Danny’s actress daughter Lucy DeVito, plus Danny’s old “Taxi” co-star Carol Kane, Michael Barker and Tom Bernard from Sony Pictures Classics, Sean Stone (son of Oliver), and so on. They’d just been to a very full screening of “The Comedian.”

But right as guests were filing in for afternoon tea, a familiar face stood before me. “What’s going on in here?” asked none other than Billy Joel, who has nothing to do with the movie, but had been staying in the hotel overnight. (If you want to find stars, always check the Plaza Athenee.)

Billy had been in town from Long Island to have dinner last night with daughter Alexa. He looks great. Suddenly, guests for the DeNiro tea are lining up to take photos with Billy.

Billy, I asked, have you ever seen “SoapDish”?

He said, “You mean with Sally Field? Where she goes to the mall to get attention?”

Billy was having his “SoapDish” moment.

Last night Billy had been a guest, coincidentally, at DeNiro’s Broadway opening of “A Bronx Tale.” It’s a small town, New York.

“I loved that show,” he told me. “Originally they’d asked me to work on some of the songs,” he said. Eventually Alan Menken wrote the score. Some of the songs do have a Billy Joel feel to them.

“Hey, isn’t that Billy Joel?” someone asked as the famed composer and rock star faded out the front door and “The Comedian” took over.

Only in New York, kids.

keep refreshing…

The New York Film Critics Circle is voting right now. Will the Circle be unbroken? So far their choices are pretty mainstream, up the middle.

NYFCC’s picks are LaLaLand best picture, Isabelle Huppert best actress, Michelle  Williams best supporting actress, Casey Affleck, best actor for Manchester, Mahershala Ali for Moonlight best supporting actor, Zootopia for Best Animated Film, and the OJ: Made in America for best Documentary.

All those choices are fine and right on the nose. But the OJ doc is really for TV. There were so many good docs made as films, it’s too bad the NY critics didn’t choose one of those.

Best Screenplay– Manchester– Kenneth Lonergan

Best Cinematography– Moonlight

Foreign Language Film– Toni Erdmann

The Broadcast Film Critics have announced the nominations for Critics Choice Awards, which will air December 11th on A&E. The biggest vote getters were “Manchester by the Sea,” “Moonlight,” “Lion,” “La La Land,” and “Arrival.” One movie that suffered I think from a too early release was “Florence Foster Jenkins.” Meryl Streep was only nominated for Best Actress in a Comedy. (That may have also been due to lack of a screener DVD for voters.) Same goes for “Hidden Figures,” which has had a stealth non campaign. Justin Timberlake got a Best Song nomination for “Can’t Stop the Feeling” from “Trolls.”

Best Picture
“Arrival”
“Fences”
“Hacksaw Ridge”
“Hell or High Water”
“La La Land”
“Lion”
“Loving”
“Manchester by the Sea”
“Moonlight”
“Sully”

Best Director
Damien Chazelle (“La La Land”)
Mel Gibson (“Hacksaw Ridge”)
Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight”)
Kenneth Lonergan (“Manchester by the Sea”)
David Mackenzie (“Hell or High Water”)
Denis Villeneuve (“Arrival”)
Denzel Washington (“Fences”)

Best Actor
Casey Affleck (“Manchester by the Sea”)
Joel Edgerton (“Loving”)
Andrew Garfield (“Hacksaw Ridge”)
Ryan Gosling (“La La Land”)
Tom Hanks (“Sully”)
Denzel Washington (“Fences”)

Best Actress
Amy Adams (“Arrival”)
Annette Bening (“20th Century Women”)
Isabelle Huppert (“Elle”)
Ruth Negga (“Loving”)
Natalie Portman (“Jackie”)
Emma Stone (“La La Land”)

Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali (“Moonlight”)
Jeff Bridges (“Hell or High Water”)
Ben Foster (“Hell or High Water”)
Lucas Hedges (“Manchester by the Sea”)
Dev Patel (“Lion”)
Michael Shannon (“Nocturnal Animals”)

Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davis (“Fences”)
Greta Gerwig (“20th Century Women”)
Naomie Harris (“Moonlight”)
Nicole Kidman (“Lion”)
Janelle Monáe  (“Hidden Figures”)
Michelle Williams (“Manchester by the Sea”)

Best Young Actor/Actress
Lucas Hedges (“Manchester by the Sea”)
Alex R. Hibbert (“Moonlight”)
Lewis MacDougall (“A Monster Calls”)
Madina Nalwanga (“Queen of Katwe”)
Sunny Pawar ( “Lion”)
Hailee Steinfeld (“The Edge of Seventeen”)

Best Adapted Screenplay
Luke Davies (“Lion”)
Tom Ford (“Nocturnal Animals”)
Eric Heisserer (“Arrival”)
Todd Komarnicki (“Sully”)
Allison Schroeder, Theodore Melfi (“Hidden Figures”)
August Wilson (“Fences”)

Best Original Screenplay
Damien Chazelle (“La La Land”)
Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight”)
Yorgos Lanthimos/Efthimis Filippou (“The Lobster”)
Kenneth Lonergan (“Manchester by the Sea “)
Jeff Nichols (“Loving”)
Taylor Sheridan (“Hell or High Water”)

Best Cinematography
“Arrival” (Bradford Young)
“Jackie” (Stéphane Fontaine)
“La La Land” (Linus Sandgren)
“Moonlight” (James Laxton)
“Nocturnal Animals” (Seamus McGarvey)

Best Costume Design
“Allied” (Joanna Johnston)
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” (Colleen Atwood)
“Florence Foster Jenkins” (Consolata Boyle)
“Jackie” (Madeline Fontaine)
“La La Land” (Mary Zophres)
“Love & Friendship” (Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh)

Best Editing
“Arrival” (Joe Walker)
“Hacksaw Ridge” (John Gilbert)
“La La Land” (Tom Cross)
“Moonlight” (Nat Sanders, Joi McMillon)
“Sully” (Blu Murray)

Best Hair & Makeup
“Doctor Strange”
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”
“Hacksaw Ridge”
“Jackie”
“Star Trek Beyond”

Best Production Design
“Arrival” (Patrice Vermette; Paul Hotte, André Valade)
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” (Stuart Craig; James Hambidge, Anna Pinnock)
“Jackie” (Jean Rabasse; Véronique Melery)
“La La Land” (David Wasco; Sandy Reynolds-Wasco)
“Live By Night” (Jess Gonchor; Nancy Haigh)

Best Score
“Arrival” (Jóhann Jóhannsson)
“Jackie” (Mica Levi)
“La La Land” (Justin Hurwitz)
“Moonlight” (Nicholas Britell)
“Lion” (Dustin O’Halloran, Hauschka)

Best Song
“Audition (The Fools Who Dream) from “La La Land”
“City of Stars” from “La La Land”
“How Far I’ll Go” from “Moana”
“Can’t Stop the Feeling!” from “Trolls”
“The Rules Don’t Apply” from “Rules Don’t Apply”
“Drive It Like You Stole It” from “Sing Street”

Best Visual Effects
“Arrival”
“Doctor Strange”
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”
“The Jungle Book”
“A Monster Calls”

Best Animated Feature
“Finding Dory”
“Kubo and the Two Strings”
“Moana”
“The Red Turtle”
“Trolls”
“Zootopia”

Best Foreign Language Film
“Elle”
“The Handmaiden”
“Julieta”
“Neruda”
“The Salesman”
“Toni Erdmann”

Best Acting Ensemble
“Fences”
“Hell or High Water”
“Hidden Figures”
“Manchester by the Sea”
“Moonlight”
“20th Century Women”

Best Action Movie
“Captain America: Civil War”
“Deadpool”
“Doctor Strange”
“Hacksaw Ridge”
“Jason Bourne”

Best Actor in an Action Movie
Benedict Cumberbatch (“Doctor Strange”)
Matt Damon (“Jason Bourne”)
Chris Evans (“Captain America: Civil War”)
Andrew Garfield (“Hacksaw Ridge”)
Ryan Reynolds (“Deadpool”)

Best Actress in an Action Movie
Gal Gadot (“Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”)
Scarlett Johansson (“Captain America: Civil War”)
Margot Robbie (“Suicide Squad”)
Tilda Swinton (“Doctor Strange”)

Best Comedy
“Central Intelligence”
“Deadpool”
“Don’t Think Twice”
“The Edge of Seventeen”
“Hail, Caesar!”
“The Nice Guys”

Best Actor in a Comedy
Ryan Gosling (“The Nice Guys”)
Hugh Grant (“Florence Foster Jenkins”)
Dwayne Johnson (“Central Intelligence”)
Viggo Mortensen (“Captain Fantastic”)
Ryan Reynolds (“Deadpool”)

Best Actress in a Comedy
Kate Beckinsale (“Love & Friendship”)
Sally Field (“Hello, My Name Iis Doris”)
Kate McKinnon (“Ghostbusters”)
Hailee Steinfeld (“The Edge of Seventeen”)
Meryl Streep (“Florence Foster Jenkins”)

Best Sci-Fi/Horror Movie
“Arrival”
“Doctor Strange”
“Don’t Breathe”
“Star Trek Beyond”
“10 Cloverfield Lane”
“The Witch”

The last big movie of this season has begun screening, albeit in a strange way. On Wednesday, some critics saw the Scorsese movie “Silence” in order to vote in the New York Film Critics awards which will unravel on Thursday morning. Other Los Angeles critics will see the movie on Sunday. New York critics and press won’t see it until next Thursday.

The people who saw it today are supposedly under an embargo, but they couldn’t stay Silent, get it? The gist of 9 different Tweeters is that “Silence” is beautiful but not earth shaking. One critic said it was a “Faith based film” which is code for boring. Another said “temper expectations accordingly.” So, really, some kind of cat is out of the bag.

What “Silence” doesn’t sound like is competition for the Oscar movies already in place– “La La Land,” “Manchester by the Sea,” “Lion,” “Moonlight,” “Fences,” and so on. Scorsese has been down this road before. His “Kundun” was also a labor of love, but didn’t go gangbusters like “The Wolf of Wall Street.” But “Silence” is still hotly anticipated, no matter what Scorsese has wrought. This could be a slow cooking masterpiece.

But it’s interesting that “Silence” was shown to priests at the Vatican, and for the New York Film Critics, but not made available for the Critics Choice Awards. We voted yesterday without seeing it, and the results will be announced here Thursday at 9:30am EST.

This would appear to be self explanatory: